I don’t know these people, so I can’t speak to the veracity of any incident, but I’m a little worried about the passage here:
[[Edit 2: I just want to make it very clear that if someone came forward unhappy with their 17yo experiences at the hands of older people, I would support them in taking retributive action. Problems can obviously occur in those types of arrangements. But I still don’t expect a case from 10 years ago to be proof of broader problems today. I have seen and experienced way too much sexual misconduct by men to believe that episodes ten years ago(and prior to the Me Too Movement too, when I witnessed a lot of men “wake up” about this stuff and become better at policing their communities)should prompt us to typecast and trash an org, community, or subculture today. I’d have to throw the whole world out, and I promise I’m not overdramatizing when I say that.]]
I think we need to be careful with statements like this. It can take many years, or even entire lifetimes, for bad actors to be outed. You can think of famous examples like Bill cosby or jimmy saville here, who ran free for decades before their actions were exposed.
“we haven’t heard about an incident for ten years” does not necessarily mean that a group doesn’t still have a problem. They could have just gotten better at hiding it.
I do think that groups and even individuals that were previously sketchy can get better. I was in a group that I believe successfully eliminated it’s sexual misconduct problem. But we did so proactively, by kicking people out and instituting preventative measures. I think some parts of EA have done this and are following best practices, but I am concerned about others, in particular the Bay Area rationalists, who it seems (purely from a biased outside perspective) have been far too dismissive of allegations like the time article. I would be happy to be proven wrong about this!
You and I don’t disagree. Which is why I ended my prior two comments with calls for patience and links to a survey so we can get better data. I feel like I touched on that throughout but my point wasn’t to make an active claim about the community, it was to get someone else to stop making active claims backed up with tripe.
Honestly, I am frustrated by this comment. It reveals to me that I’m not sure what I can say to keep from being misunderstood. I added in that edit you quote as a way of trying to say something very similar to what you have just said. I was acknowledging that there still could have been a problem, despite all my talk about 17yo consent. And I was acknowledging that things can take years to come out, that is how these things can happen, so even though it has been a decade, I would support if something came out. I added in that edit out of raw fear that people would misunderstand me and I would get cancelled. But somehow you have taken that edit as proof of something very different, almost the opposite, the opinion that “if we haven’t heard about an incident for ten years, that means that a group doesn’t still have a problem.” That is an opinion that I don’t hold, and yeah which I could be unduly cancelled for, so I guess my edit got me into hotter water. Sigh.
Again, I don’t think it’s impossible that something bad occurred. But if you read the FB thread, the one now-27 yo (then 25 I think) remarks on it in a very unperturbed fashion and also claims they were the only minor. That was the more important thing that made it “not damning”. And less so the time gap, although the two bits look strong put together I guess. IMO at this point it is violating privacy to assume bad things happen and go spreading such links.
And again, I don’t think it’s impossible there is a current problem worse than other communities.[1] Or that the group doesn’t “still” have a problem.[2] I agree, there could be “a [bigger than average] problem”. I just think there is very, very poor proof of this. And I think you and I would agree that a problem ten years ago, if it was a problem, when you don’t even know who it was or if they still at work at the same org or in the movement, is generally very bad proof that there is a noteworthy problem today. You might say “sure but it would be weak proof if it was reported as a problem retroactively!” Would it? Because I promise you I can walk into any longrunnning large social community and ask them if they had a problem with any man doing messed up things to women in the past ten years, and the answer will be yes. Especially if that community is tens of thousands of people, and especially if you go back to the founding most-casual years of that community before systems inevitably get put in place. Honestly, I’m having a hard time imagining that even, say, Rotary Club, has been exempt in the past decade. They just don’t have a culture of airing grievances publicly, which is EA’s bread and butter.
So nothing I have seen, in the density of complaints I have seen over time, including even if that consensual statutory incident was actually problematic, proves or disproves the idea that EA could have a big problem. Thomas was making a positive claim of a big problem, which is why my focus on trying to bring back neutrality could perhaps be misconstrued as arguing for the opposite claim. People are used to seeing two opposite claims duking it out, not just someone trying to return neutrality. So, to make my position abundantly clear, I am not arguing for any particular claim except sharing my own experience as a data point, and I am trying to get other people to stop using bad evidence to back up claims. And using bad evidence naturally means that the claim won’t hold up well when you look close, if that poor evidence is all or most of what you have. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to prove the opposite of the claim, it means they set up their argument that badly.
Does EA have a big problem? It’s hard to prove one way or another, and it has not been proven. But we will have more data soon. Until then, I would like to remind critics of what definitely matters if they are going to make claims about our community today as though their claims are the unobjectifiable truth: women’s safety today. That is essentially the only evidence that definitely matters if the claim is not “EA or rationality used to have a problem”. We should use 5 years past, 10 years past, suspicion of problems to do more digging into whether EA has a current major problem and if so, how our recent systems that focus on sexual misconduct have been inadequate. Which is indeed what is being done.
Please keep in mind, it is extremely stressful to write the types of comments I wrote above. I do it to try to protect real people and our very real movement from unwarranted hasty kneejerk cancellation, which derails lives, waylays futures, and causes emotional health crises for those effected. Unfortunately, I am well aware that while doing so, I risk such cancellation myself, which is very scary and necessitates (IMO) me writing a cringe novel so people can fully understand the context of my words and not come after me/ruin my future. But the more words I write, the more sentences I create which also demand perfection or risk being nitpicked And people interpret things in different ways, or forget points I make if I haven’t revisited it in the last few paragraphs. It would be a lot nicer if people on this forum would afford some grace to those of us who take on this reputational risk for the good of others in the community (and under our real names, so it actually means something). If I saw someone share a letter that was proven to falsely accuse Titotal, I would step in for you too. And wouldn’t it annoy you, perhaps even greatly concern you, if, after a defense of you had been mounted, saying validly “we don’t know there was a problem here”, then someone comes in and says “but there still might be a problem tho”? Like, yes, but I just want it to sink in with an audience that attacking others, posting proven falsehoods, and making grand unsupported claims about these things is not okay, and let that stand on it’s own. I really think EAs should stick up for ourselves and each other here.
A note to forum readers in general: Instead of trying to pick everything apart on the defensive side, where I/people like me are simply trying to add neutrality back in and police interpersonal decency so as to prevent slander and privacy-violations, you could pick apart the other side. The side that initially tries to make active (not neutral) claims which they “prove” with blatant falsehoods, outlandishly farfetched speculation, and uncalled-for judgements on people/the movement who are multiple steps removed from theoretical or actual bad situations. I wait a good bit of time usually from when I see an unacceptable comment, but hardly anyone ever steps in. If anyone thinks they can do it better, please do. But right now I have to wonder if I’m one of the few who notices and cares that journalists and people with pitchforks sometimes hang out here, and based on noticing that risk, does time-urgent comms in response to potentially-damaging comments.[3] We should not expect downvotes and disagreevotes to stop journalists or people with pitchforks—they can just DM the person who got downvoted or copypaste anyway. They can easily use that as proof that EAs just don’t want to hear “valid” critiques. The truth was that the critiques were not valid, but people will never know unless EA Forum users like you and me respond. Journalists can share the truth if they want, but I can’t be the only one who no longer expects journalists to figure out what is true let alone what true things are relevant to a grand thesis. In that case, someone needs to do the factchecking and, frankly, critical thinking for such comments/posts on the spot before gish gallops and the like snowball. This is why I responded to the Kathy Forth stuff and so on and so on to whatever might have slanderous aspects or I see as unfair to others. You can do this too. Please.
I am sorry for going off here Titotal, but I really don’t need the feedback that “we need to be more careful with statements like this” or “X does not mean Y”. I was very careful. And I know that X does not mean Y. It is already nightmare fuel for me that I had that conversation with Thomas all through the weekend, and I tried very hard for many hours, and I only did so for the good of others. Maybe focus on the other side to be careful with their statements. If you want to add or highlight another point, it would be nicer if you check for what I think in the thread, or ask a question of what I really meant, or frame it as a heads up to the audience, rather than (apparently) try to correct me on the one thing in thousands of words you think I might not have gotten.
Okay I admit I do have strong expectation that EA does not have more assault than other communities, which was the original claim I was pushing back against, but that is still just my belief and I’m still trying to focus on data and wait for more to come out
Although I will say that if we have a Bill Cosby in our community, someone who would be doing ongoing bad things for many years and still today, it was probably Brent Dill or Michael Vassar. People are looking for these types now.
I’m sure some people notice and care but don’t have the time. I’m more puzzled that lots of people do seem to have the time to comment on community drama, but don’t seem to notice or care enough to comment when blatantly unreasonably negative claims about others (and our movement) get made that could very easily end up as another hit piece or viral twitter thread that meaningfully makes lives worse, both our lives (EA’s) and the lives of the people/animals we try to help via our movement, while being unwarranted. We could find out claims are unwarranted, but it would be too late to take it back after people’s reputations are trashed
For the public record: I was not trying to “call you out”, I don’t think you are harmful, and I recognize how emotionally exhausting it is to discuss these subjects. I think Thomas was trying to throw out as much negative things as possible in a way that was fairly counterproductive, and I dont blame you for trying to rebut that.
I felt the need to write the comment because I think it is still incredibly important to get this right, and not let reactions to attacks let you go too far in the other direction. If you find out someone did something sketchy ten years ago, it is evidence that they are sketchy now. Not complete and total “cancellable” evidence that overwrites the rules of charity and society, but evidence nonetheless.
By pure statistical chance, even if it was the the best community in the world re harrassment. there are probably still some people being abused. They need to know that they can come out, and that their claims will be treated fairly and not minimised for bad reasons. That is more important than anything I can write here. And for the record, I don’t think you would do that, but unfortunately others might, and I have seen that before here.
I don’t know these people, so I can’t speak to the veracity of any incident, but I’m a little worried about the passage here:
I think we need to be careful with statements like this. It can take many years, or even entire lifetimes, for bad actors to be outed. You can think of famous examples like Bill cosby or jimmy saville here, who ran free for decades before their actions were exposed.
“we haven’t heard about an incident for ten years” does not necessarily mean that a group doesn’t still have a problem. They could have just gotten better at hiding it.
I do think that groups and even individuals that were previously sketchy can get better. I was in a group that I believe successfully eliminated it’s sexual misconduct problem. But we did so proactively, by kicking people out and instituting preventative measures. I think some parts of EA have done this and are following best practices, but I am concerned about others, in particular the Bay Area rationalists, who it seems (purely from a biased outside perspective) have been far too dismissive of allegations like the time article. I would be happy to be proven wrong about this!
You and I don’t disagree. Which is why I ended my prior two comments with calls for patience and links to a survey so we can get better data. I feel like I touched on that throughout but my point wasn’t to make an active claim about the community, it was to get someone else to stop making active claims backed up with tripe.
Honestly, I am frustrated by this comment. It reveals to me that I’m not sure what I can say to keep from being misunderstood. I added in that edit you quote as a way of trying to say something very similar to what you have just said. I was acknowledging that there still could have been a problem, despite all my talk about 17yo consent. And I was acknowledging that things can take years to come out, that is how these things can happen, so even though it has been a decade, I would support if something came out. I added in that edit out of raw fear that people would misunderstand me and I would get cancelled. But somehow you have taken that edit as proof of something very different, almost the opposite, the opinion that “if we haven’t heard about an incident for ten years, that means that a group doesn’t still have a problem.” That is an opinion that I don’t hold, and yeah which I could be unduly cancelled for, so I guess my edit got me into hotter water. Sigh.
Again, I don’t think it’s impossible that something bad occurred. But if you read the FB thread, the one now-27 yo (then 25 I think) remarks on it in a very unperturbed fashion and also claims they were the only minor. That was the more important thing that made it “not damning”. And less so the time gap, although the two bits look strong put together I guess. IMO at this point it is violating privacy to assume bad things happen and go spreading such links.
And again, I don’t think it’s impossible there is a current problem worse than other communities.[1] Or that the group doesn’t “still” have a problem.[2] I agree, there could be “a [bigger than average] problem”. I just think there is very, very poor proof of this. And I think you and I would agree that a problem ten years ago, if it was a problem, when you don’t even know who it was or if they still at work at the same org or in the movement, is generally very bad proof that there is a noteworthy problem today. You might say “sure but it would be weak proof if it was reported as a problem retroactively!” Would it? Because I promise you I can walk into any longrunnning large social community and ask them if they had a problem with any man doing messed up things to women in the past ten years, and the answer will be yes. Especially if that community is tens of thousands of people, and especially if you go back to the founding most-casual years of that community before systems inevitably get put in place. Honestly, I’m having a hard time imagining that even, say, Rotary Club, has been exempt in the past decade. They just don’t have a culture of airing grievances publicly, which is EA’s bread and butter.
So nothing I have seen, in the density of complaints I have seen over time, including even if that consensual statutory incident was actually problematic, proves or disproves the idea that EA could have a big problem. Thomas was making a positive claim of a big problem, which is why my focus on trying to bring back neutrality could perhaps be misconstrued as arguing for the opposite claim. People are used to seeing two opposite claims duking it out, not just someone trying to return neutrality. So, to make my position abundantly clear, I am not arguing for any particular claim except sharing my own experience as a data point, and I am trying to get other people to stop using bad evidence to back up claims. And using bad evidence naturally means that the claim won’t hold up well when you look close, if that poor evidence is all or most of what you have. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to prove the opposite of the claim, it means they set up their argument that badly.
Does EA have a big problem? It’s hard to prove one way or another, and it has not been proven. But we will have more data soon. Until then, I would like to remind critics of what definitely matters if they are going to make claims about our community today as though their claims are the unobjectifiable truth: women’s safety today. That is essentially the only evidence that definitely matters if the claim is not “EA or rationality used to have a problem”. We should use 5 years past, 10 years past, suspicion of problems to do more digging into whether EA has a current major problem and if so, how our recent systems that focus on sexual misconduct have been inadequate. Which is indeed what is being done.
Please keep in mind, it is extremely stressful to write the types of comments I wrote above. I do it to try to protect real people and our very real movement from unwarranted hasty kneejerk cancellation, which derails lives, waylays futures, and causes emotional health crises for those effected. Unfortunately, I am well aware that while doing so, I risk such cancellation myself, which is very scary and necessitates (IMO) me writing a cringe novel so people can fully understand the context of my words and not come after me/ruin my future. But the more words I write, the more sentences I create which also demand perfection or risk being nitpicked And people interpret things in different ways, or forget points I make if I haven’t revisited it in the last few paragraphs. It would be a lot nicer if people on this forum would afford some grace to those of us who take on this reputational risk for the good of others in the community (and under our real names, so it actually means something). If I saw someone share a letter that was proven to falsely accuse Titotal, I would step in for you too. And wouldn’t it annoy you, perhaps even greatly concern you, if, after a defense of you had been mounted, saying validly “we don’t know there was a problem here”, then someone comes in and says “but there still might be a problem tho”? Like, yes, but I just want it to sink in with an audience that attacking others, posting proven falsehoods, and making grand unsupported claims about these things is not okay, and let that stand on it’s own. I really think EAs should stick up for ourselves and each other here.
A note to forum readers in general: Instead of trying to pick everything apart on the defensive side, where I/people like me are simply trying to add neutrality back in and police interpersonal decency so as to prevent slander and privacy-violations, you could pick apart the other side. The side that initially tries to make active (not neutral) claims which they “prove” with blatant falsehoods, outlandishly farfetched speculation, and uncalled-for judgements on people/the movement who are multiple steps removed from theoretical or actual bad situations. I wait a good bit of time usually from when I see an unacceptable comment, but hardly anyone ever steps in. If anyone thinks they can do it better, please do. But right now I have to wonder if I’m one of the few who notices and cares that journalists and people with pitchforks sometimes hang out here, and based on noticing that risk, does time-urgent comms in response to potentially-damaging comments.[3] We should not expect downvotes and disagreevotes to stop journalists or people with pitchforks—they can just DM the person who got downvoted or copypaste anyway. They can easily use that as proof that EAs just don’t want to hear “valid” critiques. The truth was that the critiques were not valid, but people will never know unless EA Forum users like you and me respond. Journalists can share the truth if they want, but I can’t be the only one who no longer expects journalists to figure out what is true let alone what true things are relevant to a grand thesis. In that case, someone needs to do the factchecking and, frankly, critical thinking for such comments/posts on the spot before gish gallops and the like snowball. This is why I responded to the Kathy Forth stuff and so on and so on to whatever might have slanderous aspects or I see as unfair to others. You can do this too. Please.
I am sorry for going off here Titotal, but I really don’t need the feedback that “we need to be more careful with statements like this” or “X does not mean Y”. I was very careful. And I know that X does not mean Y. It is already nightmare fuel for me that I had that conversation with Thomas all through the weekend, and I tried very hard for many hours, and I only did so for the good of others. Maybe focus on the other side to be careful with their statements. If you want to add or highlight another point, it would be nicer if you check for what I think in the thread, or ask a question of what I really meant, or frame it as a heads up to the audience, rather than (apparently) try to correct me on the one thing in thousands of words you think I might not have gotten.
Okay I admit I do have strong expectation that EA does not have more assault than other communities, which was the original claim I was pushing back against, but that is still just my belief and I’m still trying to focus on data and wait for more to come out
Although I will say that if we have a Bill Cosby in our community, someone who would be doing ongoing bad things for many years and still today, it was probably Brent Dill or Michael Vassar. People are looking for these types now.
I’m sure some people notice and care but don’t have the time. I’m more puzzled that lots of people do seem to have the time to comment on community drama, but don’t seem to notice or care enough to comment when blatantly unreasonably negative claims about others (and our movement) get made that could very easily end up as another hit piece or viral twitter thread that meaningfully makes lives worse, both our lives (EA’s) and the lives of the people/animals we try to help via our movement, while being unwarranted. We could find out claims are unwarranted, but it would be too late to take it back after people’s reputations are trashed
For the public record: I was not trying to “call you out”, I don’t think you are harmful, and I recognize how emotionally exhausting it is to discuss these subjects. I think Thomas was trying to throw out as much negative things as possible in a way that was fairly counterproductive, and I dont blame you for trying to rebut that.
I felt the need to write the comment because I think it is still incredibly important to get this right, and not let reactions to attacks let you go too far in the other direction. If you find out someone did something sketchy ten years ago, it is evidence that they are sketchy now. Not complete and total “cancellable” evidence that overwrites the rules of charity and society, but evidence nonetheless.
By pure statistical chance, even if it was the the best community in the world re harrassment. there are probably still some people being abused. They need to know that they can come out, and that their claims will be treated fairly and not minimised for bad reasons. That is more important than anything I can write here. And for the record, I don’t think you would do that, but unfortunately others might, and I have seen that before here.